Difference between revisions of "Blood revenge (Caucasus)"

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Blood revenge – a custom of avenging a grave insult by killing either the offender or his male relatives – has been prevalent in the Caucasus for centuries. Various terms have historically been used across the Caucasus to designate blood revenge or blood feud (that is, a cycle of subsequent blood revenges). These include ch'ir in Chechen, ch'ir or pkhä in Ingush, bidul k'isas in Avar, öttul kisas or badal in Lak, kanga kan or kanly in Kumyk and Noghai, litsvri in Svan, and qanli qisas in Azerbaijani, to name a few. This social practice expired in most of the region over the twentieth century owing to processes of modernisation and urbanisation. However, it is still commonplace in Chechnya and Ingushetia, two ethnic republics within the Russian Federation (Souleimanov 2007: 24-29)<ref>Souleimanov, E. 2007. An Endless War: The Russian-Chechen Conflict in Perspective. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang</ref>.

Blood revenge – a custom of avenging a grave insult by killing either the offender or his male relatives – has been prevalent in the Caucasus for centuries. Various terms have historically been used across the Caucasus to designate blood revenge or blood feud (that is, a cycle of subsequent blood revenges). These include ch'ir in Chechen, ch'ir or pkhä in Ingush, bidul k'isas in Avar, öttul kisas or badal in Lak, kanga kan or kanly in Kumyk and Noghai, litsvri in Svan, and qanli qisas in Azerbaijani, to name a few. This social practice expired in most of the region over the twentieth century owing to processes of modernisation and urbanisation. However, it is still commonplace in Chechnya and Ingushetia, two ethnic republics within the Russian Federation (Souleimanov 2007: 24-29)<ref>Souleimanov, E. 2007. An Endless War: The Russian-Chechen Conflict in Perspective. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang</ref>.

Blood revenge is by no means unique to the Caucasus. As part of informal local codes, known as unwritten or customary law, blood revenge has been practiced widely by tribal or clan-based societies, among which central authority was either weak or absent and law enforcement was poor. Therefore, tribes or clans had to take upon themselves the task of defending their individual members (MacCormack 1973, Chagnon 1988, Boehm 2011, Nivette 2011)<ref>MacCormack, G. 1973. 'Revenge and Compensation in early law,' The American Journal of Comparative Law, 21 (1): 69-85</ref><ref>Chagnon, N. 1988. 'Life histories, blood revenge, and warfare in a tribal population,' Science 239(4843): 985-992</ref><ref>Boehm, C. 2011. 'Retaliatory violence in human prehistory', British journal of criminology, 51(3): 518-534</ref><ref>Nivette, M. 2011. 'Violence in Non-State Societies. A Review,' British Journal of Criminology, 51(3): 578–598</ref>. Blood revenge was widespread in ancient Mesopotamia, Palestine, Greece, Rome, as well as in the (proto)states of the Fertile Crescent (Barmash 2004)<ref>Barmash, P. 2004. 'Blood Feud and State Control: Differing Legal Institutions for the Remedy of Homicide During the Second and First Millennia B.C.E.', Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 63(3): 183-199</ref>. In early medieval Europe, it was practiced by Scandinavians, Franks and other Germanic tribes (Rosenthal 1966)<ref>Rosenthal, J. 1966. 'Marriage and the blood feud in “heroic” Europe,' British Journal of Sociology, 17 (2): 133-144</ref>.  Blood revenge was practiced well into the twentieth century in Southern Europe: for instance the notorious vendetta in Southern Italy and Corsica (Wilson 2003)<ref>Wilson, S. 2003. Feuding, conflict and banditry in nineteenth-century Corsica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press</ref>, as well as in parts of Greece and in Montenegro (Black-Michaud and Peters 1975, Gallant 2000)<ref>Black-Michaud, J. and Peters, E. 1975. Cohesive Force: Feud in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press</ref><ref>Gallant, T. 2000. 'Honor, masculinity, and ritual knife fighting in nineteenth-century Greece,' American Historical Review, 105(2): 359-382</ref>. Beyond Europe and the Middle East, it spread from pre-modern Japan (Mills 1976)<ref>Mills, D. 1976. 'Kataki-uchi: The Practice of Blood-Revenge in Pre-Modern Japan,' Modern Asian Studies, 10(4): 525-542</ref> through Cambodia (Laban-Hinton 1998)<ref>Hinton, A. L. 1998. 'Why did you kill?: The Cambodian genocide and the dark side of face and honor.' The Journal of Asian Studies 57(1): 93-122.</ref> to Oceania (Hoebel 2006)<ref>Hoebel, E. 2006. The Law of Primitive Man: A Study in Comparative Legal Dynamics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press</ref>. Nowadays, in addition to the Northeast Caucasus, blood revenge remains active among the Gheg Albanians of northern Albania and Kosovo (Boyle 2010)<ref>Boyle, M. 2010. 'Revenge and reprisal violence in Kosovo,' Conflict, Security & Development, 10(2): 189-216</ref>; in the Kurdish-dominated areas of Turkey and Iraq (Icli 1994)<ref>Icli, T. 1994. 'Blood feud in Turkey: A sociological analysis,' British Journal of Criminology, 34(1): 69-74</ref>; in Pashtun-dominated areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan (Mahdi 1986)<ref>Mahdi, N. 1986. 'Pukhtunwali: Ostracism and honor among the Pathan hill tribes,' Ethnology and Sociobiology, 7(3): 295-304</ref>; Somalia (Mohamed 2007)<ref>Mohamed, J. 2007. 'Kinship and Contract in Somali Politics,' Africa 77(2): 226-249</ref>; as well as in Yemen (Morris and Trammel 2011)<ref>Morris, T. and Trammell, R. 2011. 'Formal and Informal Justice and Punishment: Urban Law and Rural Mediation Rituals in Yemen,' Race and Justice, 1(2): 131-153</ref> and in other predominantly tribal Arabic societies.

Blood revenge is by no means unique to the Caucasus. As part of informal local codes, known as unwritten or customary law, blood revenge has been practiced widely by tribal or clan-based societies, among which central authority was either weak or absent and law enforcement was poor. Therefore, tribes or clans had to take upon themselves the task of defending their individual members (MacCormack 1973, Chagnon 1988, Boehm 2011, Nivette 2011)<ref>MacCormack, G. 1973. 'Revenge and Compensation in early law,' The American Journal of Comparative Law, 21 (1): 69-85</ref><ref>Chagnon, N. 1988. 'Life histories, blood revenge, and warfare in a tribal population,' Science 239(4843): 985-992</ref><ref>Boehm, C. 2011. 'Retaliatory violence in human prehistory', British journal of criminology, 51(3): 518-534</ref><ref>Nivette, M. 2011. 'Violence in Non-State Societies. A Review,' British Journal of Criminology, 51(3): 578–598</ref>. Blood revenge was widespread in ancient Mesopotamia, Palestine, Greece, Rome, as well as in the (proto)states of the Fertile Crescent (Barmash 2004)<ref>Barmash, P. 2004. 'Blood Feud and State Control: Differing Legal Institutions for the Remedy of Homicide During the Second and First Millennia B.C.E.', Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 63(3): 183-199</ref>. In early medieval Europe, it was practiced by Scandinavians, Franks and other Germanic tribes (Rosenthal 1966)<ref>Rosenthal, J. 1966. 'Marriage and the blood feud in “heroic” Europe,' British Journal of Sociology, 17 (2): 133-144</ref>.  Blood revenge was practiced well into the twentieth century in Southern Europe: for instance the notorious vendetta in Southern Italy and Corsica (Wilson 2003)<ref>Wilson, S. 2003. Feuding, conflict and banditry in nineteenth-century Corsica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press</ref>, as well as in parts of Greece and in Montenegro (Black-Michaud and Peters 1975, Gallant 2000)<ref>Black-Michaud, J. and Peters, E. 1975. Cohesive Force: Feud in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press</ref><ref>Gallant, T. 2000. 'Honor, masculinity, and ritual knife fighting in nineteenth-century Greece,' American Historical Review, 105(2): 359-382</ref>. Beyond Europe and the Middle East, it spread from pre-modern Japan (Mills 1976)<ref>Mills, D. 1976. 'Kataki-uchi: The Practice of Blood-Revenge in Pre-Modern Japan,' Modern Asian Studies, 10(4): 525-542</ref> through Cambodia (Laban-Hinton 1998)<ref>Hinton, A. L. 1998. 'Why did you kill?: The Cambodian genocide and the dark side of face and honor.' The Journal of Asian Studies 57(1): 93-122.</ref> to Oceania (Hoebel 2006)<ref>Hoebel, E. 2006. The Law of Primitive Man: A Study in Comparative Legal Dynamics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press</ref>. Nowadays, in addition to the Northeast Caucasus, blood revenge remains active among the Gheg Albanians of northern Albania and Kosovo (Boyle 2010)<ref>Boyle, M. 2010. 'Revenge and reprisal violence in Kosovo,' Conflict, Security & Development, 10(2): 189-216</ref>; in the Kurdish-dominated areas of Turkey and Iraq (Icli 1994)<ref>Icli, T. 1994. 'Blood feud in Turkey: A sociological analysis,' British Journal of Criminology, 34(1): 69-74</ref>; in Pashtun-dominated areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan (Mahdi 1986)<ref>Mahdi, N. 1986. 'Pukhtunwali: Ostracism and honor among the Pathan hill tribes,' Ethnology and Sociobiology, 7(3): 295-304</ref>; Somalia (Mohamed 2007)<ref>Mohamed, J. 2007. 'Kinship and Contract in Somali Politics,' Africa 77(2): 226-249</ref>; as well as in Yemen (Morris and Trammel 2011)<ref>Morris, T. and Trammell, R. 2011. 'Formal and Informal Justice and Punishment: Urban Law and Rural Mediation Rituals in Yemen,' Race and Justice, 1(2): 131-153</ref> and in other predominantly tribal Arabic societies.